


Expeditionary Force x Arisen: a Crossover FanFicktion

by SciFiDVM



Category: Arisen - Fandom, Columbus Day: Expeditionary Force
Genre: Brayniverse, Ex Force x Arisen crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-23 14:50:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23246476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SciFiDVM/pseuds/SciFiDVM
Summary: Joe and Skippy meet Fick. Skippy has a submind create Fickisms. Do you need more than that?
Relationships: Joe/his shower
Kudos: 5





	Expeditionary Force x Arisen: a Crossover FanFicktion

**Author's Note:**

> After posting on the Fifty Shades of Bray Facebook group that I really wanted a Brayniverse crossover story where Fick meets Skippy, someone said “get writing”. Well… plot bunny + plenty of spare time on my hands because of the whole COVID 19 thing = this.
> 
> Disclaimer: I make no money off of this and have no intention of stealing the intellectual property rights of Craig Alanson or Michal Stephen Fuchs. My imagination just got the better of me and I wrote it down for my own amusement and the amusement of any other stupid monkeys out there that need a distraction from the fact that we’re living in the helpful backstory chapter of a post-apocalyptic novel right now.

Even though I knew that I’d probably be in deep shit with UNEF when we got back, there was still something about being home. “Hey Skippy.”

“Yes Joe.” The beer can sounded distracted.

“You’ve been awfully quiet since we jumped into visual range of Earth. Don’t tell me you’re getting emotional about coming home to our little monkey infested mud ball.”

“No, nothing like that Joe.” His voice was almost… sad?

“What’s going on, Skippy?”

“I just got a data dump from Earth and well… I’ve got some good news and some bad news.”

I was instantly on high alert, because “I’ve got good news and bad news” from the beer can almost always meant bad news and worse news.

“The good news, Joe, is that I can guarantee that you won’t be getting grilled and reprimanded by those bureaucratic, know nothing paper pushers at UNEF command.”

“Well that is good news, Skippy. But how…”

“Because they’re all dead.”

“WHAT?!?!”

“That’s the bad news, Joe. While we were away in the Roach Motel, putting our space truck back together with spare parts and duct tape, it appears there was a teensie little problem back here on Earth.”

“A… teensie… little… problem? You just said that all of UNEF Command is dead?”

“That’s really the least of Earth’s problems. The current human population is now down to around just thirty million monkeys. Mostly clustered in England near London.”

I fell back into my chair. After all we’d done and gone through. It was all for nothing. “Skippy, what happened? You said none of the other species could get here to Earth with the wormhole shut down.”

“And they didn’t. This was an… internal problem.”

“Skippy, what did you do?” If that absent minded little asshole had done something that destroyed our planet, I would never be able to forgive myself.

“ME?! This is not my fault Joey boy. This one is all on you biologics.”

“Biologics… like… Did the Kristang virus somehow get released?”

“No. This had nothing to do with any of the other species in this galaxy. Do you remember a small terrorist organization called Al Shabaab?”

I thought back for a minute. “Yeah. Bunch of jihadi jerk offs over in the Horn of Africa. Liked beheading westerners on Youtube.”

“That’s the one. Well, apparently while we were gone they tried to up their game and got a Kazakh scientist to make them a biologic weapon. Some designer hybrid of myelin toxin and small pox. Your CIA was all over that though, and they took out the stores of the bioweapon before they could use it.”

“If the CIA destroyed the virus, then what happened to the seven BILLION people you’re telling me died while we were gone?”

“Unfortunately, those Al Shabaab guys were dumb, even by your lowly monkey standards. Their poor excuse for biosecurity included leaving some numbskull in a shack with a literal monkey that was infected with the virus. Enter a pack of rabid local dogs, and presto change-o, through the magic of RNA mutation, you get… the Hargeisa virus.”

“I can’t believe this. We’re gone for a couple years, and a virus wipes out like ninety percent of Earth’s population.”

“You should probably check your math there, because it’s actually like ninety-nine point six zero two seven…”

“I get the point Skippy.” Man, this was hard to believe.

“And it wasn’t just the virus, Joe. It was mostly the zombies.”

“Excuse me? The… did you just say ‘zombies’?”

“That’s right. The Hargeisa virus killed anyone it infected, then through abnormal firing in the brain’s neuronal synapses it essentially reanimated the corpses into hyper-aggressive killing machines that hunted down and ate or infected everyone they could. I’m sending the reports to your tablet now so you can verify, but I’m pretty sure that’s what you monkeys describe as ‘zombies’.”

“Holy shit, Skippy. We missed a zombie apocalypse?”

“Jeez. Don’t sound so disappointed. It wasn’t all fun and games and Brad Pit running around down there. If it weren’t for an extremely talented group of Special Forces operators, a couple scientists that are marginally more intelligent than the average monkey, and some of Colonel Smithe’s chaps back in the British military, your species would be functionally extinct on your home planet.”

“But we’re not? We… I mean humans… err... _living_ humans won?”

“They did Joe. But there are still numerous areas where the survivors have yet to eradicate the remaining zombies, or ‘Zulus’ as you military types have taken to calling them. For the time being, it is most likely safest to remain in orbit and keep the crew aboard the Dutchman to prevent any potential contamination until we can get everyone here vaccinated against the virus.” 

“Sounds good Skippy. I’d just really like to get a SITREP from somebody that was on the ground, you know. And I probably need to report in to whoever is in command now.”

“I don’t know how to tell you this Joe, so I’m just going to come out and say it. You are the highest ranking Army officer left alive on Earth. There’s one Naval Commander that technically outranks you in the overall hierarchy, but as far as command structure goes, you’re it now.”

I was stunned. I could barely tie my shoes by myself each morning, mostly because Skippy would have his cleaning bots come in and tangle the laces up at night while I slept, but now I was in charge of the entire United States Army?

“If it makes it any easier for you, there’s not much left to command. The United States was hit hard by the virus early on. By my count, from transmissions I’ve intercepted, there aren’t more than two hundred and twelve active members of the US Army still alive. And they’re mostly clustered in small groups in isolated locations.”

“No Skippy, that does not make me feel better.” Now I really needed a SITREP. Crew members were going to need to know about their families and friends left on Earth and what had happened. I needed to speak with someone that had been there, gone through the battles. I asked the beer can, “Is there anyone we can bring up here to help me explain what happened to the crew?”

“Hmmm. Let me check. Why yes. It appears that one of the surviving military leaders is actually a personal acquaintance of Margret. I can have a drop ship sent down to pick him up on the double.”

I instantly bristled at that.

“Easy there, Joey. He was her drill instructor during her early years in the Corp. Nothing to worry about.”

“What? I wasn’t worried? What would I be worried about? Margaret… Adams... I mean Adams is an adult and is allowed to have whatever kinds of acquaintances she wants and…”

“Sure Joe. Whatever you say.” I could hear that little asshole rolling his eyes at me. “I’m sending a drop ship down now. I’ll let you know when it returns.”

…..

A few hours later, I was sitting in my office eating a fluffer nutter and playing Mario Kart on my tablet. I needed to take my mind off what had happened on Earth before it drove me totally bonkers. Reading the mission reports Skippy had provided about what happened on Earth had given me a headache. Until I heard from the team on Earth in person, I didn’t want to make any decisions about what we’d do next, and until that happened there wasn’t much for me to do besides worry and basically wear ulcers into the lining of my stomach.

Skippy’s avatar sprang into existence on my desk and his voice was panicked. “Joe! We’re under attack. Some kind of giant mutant thing must have snuck onto the drop ship on the planet and now it’s trying to board the ship.”

I was out of my chair and running down the corridor as fast as my legs would carry me. My mind flashed to mutant zombies that would infect the entire unvaccinated crew aboard the confined area of the Dutchman. “Skippy, do not let that thing get aboard.”

“I’m trying!” He shouted back in my ear piece. “But this thing is massive and unbelievably strong.”

I arrived at the docking bay door just in time to see it physically pried open from the outside. I reached for a weapon and realized I’d come running without grabbing a blaster or even my usual sidearm. Great. I’d broken one of the first rules of zombie fighting. Always carry a weapon. I was like that idiot that dies in the first ten minutes of the zombie apocalypse movie, doing something totally stupid while everybody in the audience is screaming and yelling at the screen like “No, that’s stupid. Don’t do that.”

Skippy must have sent out a shipwide alert about the danger, because at just that moment, Smithe and a whole STAR team in powered armor came barreling around the corner followed by Adams, Chang, and Sims. I was proud to see that none of them had forgotten to bring their weapons. All of which were now pointed at the hulking beast ducking through the docking bay door and into the corridor.

“Damn dude. And I thought the bulkheads on the JFK were bad.” A looming mountain of a man straightened himself to his full height after squatting to get through the door frame, and almost hit his head on the ceiling of the corridor.

He was followed a few steps behind by another large, but not quite as enormous, figure sporting a scruffy red beard. “The Thoranin aren’t much more than four feet tall. They didn’t design their ships with humans in mind, let alone you, big man.”

“Stand down.” Smithe ordered, recognizing the massive “intruders”.

“Smithe, is that you?” The larger man called out in his rumbling basso voice.

“Predator! Juice!” Smithe walked up and greeted the pair with manly handshakes and back slaps. “Didn’t think I’d see you lot again after Hereford.”

“Hey man. Good to see ya. Yeah, shit popped off not too long after you guys shipped out.” Pred offered.

Skippy’s voice whispered cautiously in my earpiece. “Do you mean to tell me that’s actually a human?”

“Uh yea.” I’d known one of the guys on Alpha’s team had to be big based on some of the stuff they described in their reports, but wow. Smithe was one of our biggest guys, and even in his Kristang power armor, this Predator dwarfed him.

Suddenly a new voice bellowed from the docking bay. “You ladies care to stop fondling eachothers’ panties for half a minute so I can get on with meeting this Bishop guy and get back to killing Zulus?”

Adams stepped forward as the last occupant of the drop ship stepped aboard the Flying Dutchman. “Master Guns!” She greeted him warmly, and the two shook hands.

“Adams!” The grizzled old Marine seemed genuinely happy to see his former soldier. “What’s it gonna take to convince you to ditch this alien crap and come back dirtside with me and start kicking Zulu tail?”

“I appreciate the offer, but I’m not sure I’m ready to switch sci fi genres just yet.” She looked over and just barely caught my eye for the shortest of moments. “I think my place is here, on the Dutchman.”

“Well, suit yourself.” He shrugged. “Can’t believe this thing’s still in the sky. Got a look at it on the way in and I don’t remember this boat being quite as ugly when it was last here. I don’t know what the hell happened, but the thing looks like Sputnik fucked a garbage truck then tried to abort the baby with a rusty coat hanger.”

Adams laughed, apparently used to Master Gunnery Sergeant Fick’s brand of humor, but my mouth just dropped.

“Hey kid,” Fick turned to me, “You might want to shut that cock catcher of yours before flies get in there.”

My mouth snapped itself shut.

“Hey!” Skippy’s voice shouted through the ship’s speakers. “I will have you know that that is no way to speak to Colonel Bishop.”

“So you’re the Barney guy.” Fick stuck his hand out to shake mine like nothing had just happened. “Pleasure to meet ya. Can we get this meeting going? I’ve kinda got shit to do back down there.”

“Right this way.” I extended an arm in the direction of our conference room. “Juice and Predator, you’re welcome to join us, or Lieutenant Colonel Smithe can show you around the ship.”

“I’m just here to see the alien tech.” Juice shrugged.

“If you don’t mind, Colonel Bishop,” Smithe chimed in, “I am extremely eager to see how our powered armor can hold up to simulated combat against… more powerful adversaries.”

I knew what he was really thinking. “You want to see if you can take down Predator with powered armor.”

“It would be a controlled experiment. For science. Sir.” Smithe added the last bit as an afterthought.

“Oh, well. As long as it’s for science.” I couldn’t blame the guy for wanting to play around with his toys. I wasn’t sure I’d want to take on Pred even with a mech suit and an army of com bots behind me. “You guys go. Have fun. Try not to break stuff.”

“Not making any promises.” Predator rolled his neck and then cracked his knuckles.

Smithe, the STAR team, and our large guests headed off toward the training facilities. I turned to the rest of my inner circle. “Any of you going to join us?” To be honest, I was a little intimidated to be left alone with Fick.

“I think that we are needed back on the bridge.” Chang lied to my face.

“We’ll just have to read about it in your report tomorrow.” Sims gave me a fake grin that clearly said “sorry, not sorry”. Apparently no one else wanted to be trapped in a closed space with the vulgar Master Gunnery Sergeant either.

Not even Margaret was willing to join us.

I took a deep breath and led the way down the corridor.

…..

Once Fick and I were seated in our little conference room, Skippy’s avatar sprang to life in the middle of the table.

I decided to start things off. “So, it looks like we’ve got two main issues. The higher species have become interested in why our local wormhole has behaved erratically,” I was proud of myself for using erratically to make me sound smarter than I currently felt. “And will likely start snooping around our system as soon as possible. They find out what’s going on here and we humans are all dead. We also need to address the remaining zombies on Earth.”

“I mean, Jesus Fucking Christ on a bicycle, don’t tell me we’re gonna have to be fighting aliens and Zulus at the same God damned time. If that ain’t some bad B rated science fiction movie bullshit, I don’t know what is.” Fick was not amused.

“Rest assured,” Skippy chimed in. “While the alien threat is real, it will still be years before we will have to deal with any of them approaching Earth.”

“That does not assure me at all.” Fick grumbled.

“That’s why our plan was to refit and refuel the Dutchman here and head back out. Hopefully we can intercept the aliens and find a way to eliminate any interest they may have in investigating our planet or the nearby gates.” I offered.

“Hopefully?” Fick spat. “I wanna hear a lot more than ‘hopefully’ before you take the best asset in what’s left of our bare fucking bones remaining military off on a pleasure cruise. The weapons on this ugly ass excuse for a ship could go a long way in clearing areas of Zulus and providing air support for teams on the ground trying to save what’s left of humanity from the actual threat we are currently actually facing.”

“Listen here, jarhead…” Skippy once again sounded frustrated. “I know you stupid monkeys like to think out of sight out of mind, but what your exceptionally dim witted mind is not processing, is that while yes, these zombies are scary and can eat people, they can still be easily shot and killed. We’re talking about staving off a catastrophe from alien races that can blast your entire planet into microscopic dust particles from beyond your Ort Cloud. Which of these do you think is the bigger threat?”

Fick audibly growled.

I realized I needed to jump in before things turned violent. “Okay okay. Let’s all calm down.” I waved my hands in the air trying to get every one’s attention on me and break the growing tension between Skippy and Fick. “I don’t see any reason why we can’t do both.”

Fick and Skippy’s avatar returned to glaring at each other.

“It’s going to take weeks to get the Dutchman restocked, and the crew is going to need leave to see if any of their family and friends are still alive down there. That will take time. We’ll need to assemble a crew for our next mission, and didn’t you have at least a couple months’ worth of repairs you wanted to do to our beat up old space truck?” I addressed the last part to Skippy.

“Well, yes…” Skippy grumbled.

“During that time we should be able to help the soldiers fighting on the ground.” I turned my head to address Fick. “Some of the time the Dutchman will be offline during the repairs, but the rest of the time we should have maneuvering and weapons capabilities even while Skippy is working on other systems. We’ve also got drop ships, com bots, and the mechanical suits you saw earlier. And Skippy has the ability to synthesize and replicate things like vaccines and that Meningitis Z pathogen the reports say killed the zombies in London. I think with all that we should be able to put a sizeable dent in the zombie population before we need to ship back out.”

“You’re the boss.” I’m pretty sure that was Fick’s way of saying that he approved of the plan, even if he didn’t really want to admit that.

Feeling like I was on a roll, I continued, “What’s the current state of your vaccine production facilities? Do we need to get this Dr. Park up here to work with Skippy to get things rolling more efficiently or to consult on the Meningitis Z production?

“My understanding is Doc Park’s good on the vaccine front, but we used the last of the Meningitis Z cocktail defending Cent Com in that last big battle. That crazy Kazakh scientist that made it died, and we don’t exactly have stores of the original meningitis he modified to make it just lying around. The beer can might be able to help with that.”

“Fine.” Skippy sounded huffy. “I’ll make your super pathogen while I repair the ship _and_ coordinate the resupply.”

“You can talk to Dr. Park and arrange getting the samples and materials you’ll need for that?” I asked Skippy.

“Already doing it, Joe. ”

“Excellent Skippy. Thank you.”

I heard him grumble something that sounded like “Miserable monkeys. Expecting me to do everything…” But I ignored him.

I turned my attention back to Fick. “Is there anything else we can do to help?”

“If you got any special forces on this bucket that wanna fight in a horror movie instead of a science fiction one, we’re spread awful thin on combat effective soldiers down there. Even if it’s just while this shit can is down for repair, we could use more boots on the ground.”

“We are happy to help in any way possible. Once we get the crew vaccinated, I’m sure we’ll have a number of volunteers.” Volunteers. I still didn’t really grasp the idea that I was somehow now in charge of everything. Making decisions for my crew still seemed like an awesome responsibility to me. The fact that I could now order around pretty much any American military member of the planet was blowing my mind.

“I’m not sure how much crew you were planning on shipping back out with, but you might want to think about cutting that number. You guys are loaded up on scientists and military personnel. That’s the kind of shit we could really use down on the planet.” Fick suggested. “I’m not saying we need all your females to start repopulating the Earth or any shit like that. But if you guys want to come back to a planet that’s actually got any people left on it when you’re done secretly fighting alien lizards and cats and what-the-fuck-ever-else it is you guys do out there, we need to do everything we can for our population numbers.”

“He’s right, Joe. With the human population down to around thirty million, you monkeys are going to need to start procreating like… well… like monkeys.”

“Thank you for that helpful insight.” I groaned.

“And no, Joey, what you do in the shower each morning doesn’t count. In case your mommy never fully explained the birds and the bees to you, you need a real human female to make a baby.”

“Hah!” Fick cackled at my expense.

“Skippy!” I growled at the asshole. I didn’t like being belittled in front of another officer that I already found intimidating. “I am the commander of this ship and I demand that you show me some respect.”

“That what you tell yourself in the mirror each morning before you defile that innocent shower of yours?” Fick snickered.

“Oh that was a good one!” Skippy’s avatar actually fist bumped Fick.

The conversation pretty much went downhill from there. I’ll spare you the details. There were a lot of jokes made at my expense, and I was suddenly glad that none of the rest of the crew had wanted to be here to see this. The important part is that Master Gunnery Sergeant Fick and I worked out some plans for zombie eradication efforts and the logistics of which target sites to deal with first. There was a lot of profanity and extremely vulgar references mixed in to the discussion, often for no reason I could figure out, but by the end of the meeting I didn’t find the things that came out of Fick’s mouth quite as shockingly offensive as I had when he had arrived here. Or at least I was getting better at hiding it. Whatever. Same thing.

As we stood and started toward the door, Fick clapped a large meaty hand on my shoulder and chuckled, “You’re okay, Bishop. I didn’t have the highest expectations for a kid Colonel most people call ‘the Barney guy’ and an AI named Skippy, but you’re alright. I look forward to working with you. Hell. We get these Zulus mopped up and maybe I’ll even join up to be one of your crazy space pirates or whatever the beer can calls you.”

“The Merry Band of Pirates would be honored to have you Master Guns.” Skippy’s voice trailed after us as we started walking down the corridor to the docking bay.

“Absolutely.” I agreed and stopped to shake his hand as I caught sight of Smithe coming around the corner with Juice and Predator. He was still in his armor and it looked… dented?

The Alpha team members said their good byes and joined Fick as they re-boarded their drop ship and departed back toward the planet.

“You really thinking about letting Fick join the Merry Band of Pirates?” I asked Skippy as I strolled back toward my office.

“No way, Joe. Every other sentence out of that man’s mouth makes me feel like I need to bathe my matrix in bleach.”

“I know what you mean. But you two looked like you were really getting along there at the end.”

“That’s because after analyzing his speech patterns, I realized that most of his _charming_ colloquialisms were nothing but completely random groupings of the most vulgar imagery possible. Then I dedicated a sub-mind to replicate this pattern and become what I call my Fickism Generator.”

“A ‘Fickism Generator’?” I laughed.

“It’s really quite simple. Over fifty percent of his dialect consists of a specific pattern. You start with ‘Hey, you…’ then you insert a type of animal followed by the name of a portion of the human urogenital or reproductive tract. This is followed by ‘Why don’t you…’ then whatever task he is trying to communicate he wants performed. And it finishes with, ‘Or I’ll…’ obscene sexual act ‘your’ pick an orifice or familial relative. Here’s an example. Hey, you rhinoceros prostate. Why don’t you get your ass on that drop ship, or I’ll anally probe your little sister. Or how about, hey, you skunk scrotum. Why don’t you finish fixing that reactor coil or I’ll skull fuck your left ear canal. ”

“Skippy!” I laughed, both traumatized and entertained at the same time.

“While I don’t think he’s the right fit for our crew, you do have to appreciate what he did for the people of Earth. You probably wouldn’t have a planet to come back to if not for him.”

“True enough, Skippy. True enough.”

…..

“Hey Master Guns,” Juice turned to Fick as they walked across the deck of the JFK and the drop ship they had just departed took off. “You really thinking about joining up with them and flying around killing aliens?”

“Hell no.” Fick spat. “That beer can’s a giant asshole. But I figure those idiots deserve some credit. I don’t know how, but they’re the reason we only had to fight zombie humans. Can you fuckin’ imagine fighting Kristang Zulus?

“Aw hell.” Predator smiled. “Might be fun.”


End file.
